Local food systems are direct pipelines to improved health.

This month has already been amazing for us at LB as we work with clients to help them hone in on their farmers market haul strategy and get all the local foods that they need for healthy living, fermentation projects, farm to table recipes and of course herbal medicine making.

Local food systems aren’t just important to invest into they are the direct pipeline to improved health (this includes water).

We had on our client call for Everyday Herbalism Fast Track an expert on Lupus this past week and it was so much fun to uncover some unique reasons why local food is essential in your overall healthy eating/lifestyle plan. We discussed how to exactly make your plan aligned with your goals, how to set up reliable supplier relationships with local farmers and food producers and the nutrient density available in local foods versus other food sources.

When you eat in season you are enhancing every organ system of your body and when you are eating locally grown food it is usually without the pesticides and other chemicals that are throughout commercial produce. The local food is also based in regenerative or micro grow set ups so the soils are healthy and therefore the food is more nutrient dense.

Farmers markets offer direct alliances with local growers and therefore relationships can be established to seek interesting parts of plants and specialty items not normally available in commercial operations. Think rare fruits, mushrooms, berries, herbs, nuts, bee products, fermented foods, forest crops and wild foods.

If you are going to embark of herbal medicine making, fermentation, pickling, canning or other forms of preservation than the higher quality of food makes the best preparations. You should think ahead what preparations you are going to make, what will be available at market and make the most of your hauls.

We cover how to reduce waste and properly align with your specific needs in the first phase of Everyday Herbalism Fast Track. We offer the beginning of the first phase for free in our online course community right here. Within this free area you will get two things, the vision piece to understand what health area you should focus in on right now for your best health possible and an exercise to ensure you have time set up in your calendar each month just for self-care, health, and personal development. This activity helps you prioritize yourself, stay organized and even go through current products in your pantry/cabinets and ensure that they are still safe to use.

We are also helping other clients in our communities with healthy sales practices at markets this season. Health is not just physical it is also financial, it is what we do with our time, our purpose and our vocations. Many of our clients have gone on to feel better and want to help others feel better. It is still part of our program Everyday Herbalism Fast Track to teach how to set up a simple and effective herbalism stall at markets to build community and to provide herbalism knowledge and services.

We also help the client who wants to go deeper in business development in our program Everyday Holistic Business Fast Track. Getting the most out of 2025 market season (or any live event you vend/table at), if selling services or physical products requires three specific things. Those things are: 1. defining your message and product scope (knowing your niche, your target audience, your perfect customer and making sure that your products and branding materials speaks directly to them), 2. Building a database that contains all buyers past and present and all prospects that opt into your email etc. and providing information in the database on these prospects about how warm they are to you and 3. Adding a stage within that database for all other vendors at the markets and the event organizers and again list the details of your relationships with those people. What we want business owners, start-ups, service providers and product producers who vend at local, live events to understand is that acute transaction is not the way to go in THIS season. INSTEAD focus on relationships and brand. You want to plan for long term customer development and will benefit greatly from focusing upfront on retention instead of just random hits. You cannot control traffic at live events but with these steps you can convert traffic higher because you will know more about your customers and be more of service to your customers/prospects. Think creatively about marketing including collaborations with other vendors, promoting products and giving that information to event organizers ahead of the event etc. Not every customer is an ideal customer for your business but every customer probably knows someone in their network who IS an ideal customer for you so don’t be afraid to ask and voice this specifically. Email laura@laurasbotanicals.com if you’d like our full 15-minute training on this very subject and how to make every event day a success even if it is slow.

Again, remember, local food systems are the direct pipeline to improved health.

They are movements of concerned and active health consumers. By participating in business within these systems you are doing a lot of work for your overall mission and brand and are presenting opportunities to everyone to connect more deeply with their own health improvement.